» Garmin Nuvi 200 and 250 Car GPS Navigators

The Garmin Nuvi 200 and Nuvi 250 are portable GPS navigators aimed at providing the convenience of GPS navigation in or out of the car without breaking the budget. Both have a QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) antiglare TFT 3.5 inch (diagonal) color touchscreen display. Other useful features are a picture viewer, calculator, currency converter, unit converter and world clock.

The Garmin Nuvi 200 and Nuvi 250 have identical specifications except for the maps included. The nuvi 250 has preloaded detailed mapping of the entire United States (including Alaska and Hawaii), Canada and Puerto Rico. The nuvi 200 includes preloaded detailed mapping of the contiguous United States (lower 48), Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Garmin offer nuvi 200 series car GPS navigators with regional coverage for Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Brazil. The regional coverage for Europe includes UK/Ireland, Nordics, Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg, France, Italy/Greece, Spain/Portugal, and Germany/Switzerland/Austria/Czech Republic. All maps are preloaded into internal memory allowing the unit to be used straight out of the box.

TFT Touchscreen Display

Both 2D and 3D perspective views are available for viewing maps. GPS operations make exclusive use of the touchscreen with an on/off switch and rotary volume control knob being the only other controls.

For planning your route while out of the car, the Nuvi 200/250 has an internal lithium-ion battery with a 5 hour life. It comes with a 12-volt power adapter for in-car recharging.

Users can search for addresses and points of interest (POI) and can also upload their own POIs. A useful selectable feature is a proximity alert which notifies the driver of upcoming custom POIs. Up to 500 waypoints with name and graphic symbol can be entered. Software features include a trip computer, re-settable odometer, timers, average and maximum speed outputs.

SiRF Star III GPS Chipset

All Garmin Nuvi 200/250 receivers have their GPS functionality provided by a SiRF Star III chipset, a winner of PC Magazine’s Award for Technical Excellence. The SiRF Star III family was a breakthrough innovation GPS chip architecture offering impressive performance improvements to the GPS receiver manufacturing industry.

The SiRF Star III chipset is a WAAS enabled (improves accuracy) GPS receiver. The SiRF Star III has position accuracy down to 2.0m, velocity accuracy of less than 0.01 m/s and hot and warm autonomous times to first fix (TTFF) of less than 1s and less than 35s respectively.

Operation and GPS Maps

Both the Nuvi 200 and Nuvi 250 are preloaded with City Navigator NT street maps. The European version includes a preloaded safety camera database containing the location of safety cameras for parts of Europe. The City Navigator maps contain information on highways, interstates, business and residential roads with attributes such as turn restrictions, speed categories and other navigation features. There is an SD expansion slot for adding other maps. The map database features some six million points of interest including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, attractions, entertainment, shopping, emergency services, post offices, camp grounds, movie theatres and ATMs.

Navigation can be as simple as selecting a POI by touching its icon on the display screen. Garmin even provide a free preloader application (which can be downloaded from their website) for you to import customized POI. It provides the ability to upload POIs created by others from your PC to your Garmin unit.

Having selected a destination from the touch screen interface, one is directed when to turn, and in what direction. Missing a turn is not a major problem as both units will automatically re-calculate a new route to the selected destination.

The Garmin Nuvi 200/250 come with Garmin Lock which is an anti -theft feature that disables the unit from performing any functions until enter a specific 4-digit PIN or take the unit to a predetermined location.

Garmin Nuvi 200/250 Package

Included in the Garmin Nuvi 200/250 box are:

• Garmin Nuvi 200 or 250
• (250) Preloaded City Navigator NT North America and Europe (full coverage) OR
• (200) Preloaded City Navigator NT data for the continental U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico (no Alaska or Canada detail) or one European region or country (click versions tab to view all)
• Suction cup mount
• Dashboard disk
• Quick Start Manual

Resources for Garmin nuvi 200 and 250

Find the answers to your questions with Garmin’s extensive FAQ database for their GPS products.

Garmin have an excellent video overview of nuvi 200 series features.

Compare the Garmin nuvi models with Garmin’s comparison database which provides side by side comparisons with highlighted differences.

User Reviews and Prices for Garmin nuvi 200 and 250

Both the nuvi 200 and 250 have been bestsellers with Amazon. Have a look at the hands on user reviews and prices on offer for the

Garmin nüvi 200 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator and
Garmin nüvi 250 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

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Garmin Nuvi 200 GPS Vehicle Navigator 0100062110
Garmin Nuvi 250 GPS Vehicle Navigator 0100062100

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GPS, NUVI 200, ASIAN AMERICAN
nuvi 250 GPS Garmin nuvi 250 GPS (City/Vehicle, 3.5" LCD - MPN: 0100062101)

Specification Garmin Nuvi 200 and Garmin Nuvi 250